I've been busy querying agents about The Christmas Festival Murders. I've had a couple requests for more material. A maybe is lots better than a flat-out no. As long as I get encouraging feedback, I'll keep querying. In the meantime, I'm working on a new story - more suspense than mystery. The setting is Amsterdam, one of my all-time favorite cities. Having had the chance to live in Holland, I fell in love with the quaint bell-shaped roof lines, canals, houseboats, and narrow streets. I can't wait to incorporate these into my story.

Keep writing and chasing agents. Let's get published!

Querying Again

I've taken a rest from trying to get my YA novel published. I came so close to hooking an agent but at the end of the process, she decided against representing it. So sad! At least, it gave me hope that a real agent with a reputable agency almost took it on.

I was frazzled from months of sending out queries and needed a change so I pulled out my first attempt at writing, The Christmas Festival Murders. When I finished it several years ago, I had an agent who was representing a children's chapter book so I sent my mystery to her. She loved my children's book so I expected raves about this one too. Instead, she recommended I cut out the first seventy pages which was about a quarter of the manuscript! Do what?

I couldn't bring myself to make those cuts so I put it away while I wrote the YA story. When I looked at the manuscript a year later, I agreed with the agent. Those seventy pages were full of fluff. I really liked the storyline so I kept that but rewrote the entire manuscript. I added a romantic interest for my female sleuth. Although I did it to spice-up the story, the book is now a romantic mystery which expands its marketability.

Just recently I had part of the manuscript critiqued through the North Carolina Writers' Network - the critiquer said it was ready to go - not a word about cutting out large chunks of material. Yay! Apparently I'd learned something and all that writing and rewriting paid off.

I just started the query process - again! I got some auto-rejections right off the bat but I've had a request for more material - an encouraging sign.

Querying is tedious, boring, and frustrating. Researching agents all day makes me feel like I'm been in a semi-coma. It's not surprising that writers (me included) scramble names and e-mail addresses and send queries to the wrong agent. I've found splitting a day between researching/sending out queries and working on another manuscript is more tolerable. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It took me a while to figure that out. I so wanted to send a query to every agent I thought might be the one.

Let's get published!

Word Choices

I bought a novel at the last minute for light reading on a recent plane trip. The story was predictable but it was entertaining enough to pass the hours on the flight. However, as soon as I started reading, the main male character chuckled at everything that happened. As the novel progressed, he chuckled every other page. To make it even more annoying, his father entered the story and he chuckled too. Obviously a genetic thing!

I know that I tend to use some words more than others but I try to be aware of them and use the Find function to see exactly how many times I've used a particular word, on what pages it appears, and how often it pops up. A distinctive word sprinkled over the course of a manuscript is acceptable - every other page is not. It's distracting to the reader.

I know we all try to use power words but sometimes a lesser word is preferable. In this case, smiled would've conveyed the characters' feelings and I would've glossed over it without even being aware of how often it was used. Chuckled was too noticeable, used way too many times, and brought the sentence and the story to a standstill.

Let's get published!

Publishing in 2011

Nothing has happened in my publishing efforts since Thanksgiving. I had to abandon my querying efforts during the holidays. I can barely pull off Christmas for my large family so all other interests fall by the wayside. Now that the Christmas boxes are packed and put away, I pulled out my first manuscript from several years ago. I'd edited it pretty vigorously last year and happily discovered it was in pretty good shape so I've been polishing it during the last week. Once I give it the final go-over and complete the submissions package, I plan to send out queries for it.

That brings me to some questions - what are your ideas about your approach for getting publishing in this new year? Are you going to continue sending out queries to agents or do you have new ideas? I expect to continue with e-queries but I've discovered some small presses and specialty presses which I added to my list. I'm starting to research electronic publishing which, I believe, is the future and merits a thorough investigation.

What are you planning to do? I hope you share your opinions.

Chapter Thirteen: Chapter/Novel Synopses

This week I started writing a novel synopsis, a part of my publishing submissions package. The intended scenario is that a literary agent will like my query letter enough to request more information including a few chapters or perhaps a full manuscript along with a synopsis of my Young Adult Mystery.

Writing a summary of a novel I've already finished sounds like it should be simple but it isn't. Like the query letter, the synopsis is another task dreaded by most writers including me.

First of all, a synopsis is not a straight-forward, run-down of the plot. That would be easy. The synopsis is a summary of my story that must be compelling and intriguing. It tells what my story is about (the murder of a young woman), what Amy the main character wants (to solve the murder to enhance the reputation she's earned as a hot shot detective and further her career goal of becoming an investigative journalist), and what obstacles she faces in accomplishing her goal (the town police chief who resents her success at crime-solving and the killer when Amy finds and confronts him). My synopsis focuses not just on events but on the emotions, motivations, and concerns of the characters. I'm writing it in the same tone and style as the manuscript and including bits of dialog.

When I started gathering my thoughts to begin my novel synopsis, I turned to my chapter synopses which are short summaries I wrote each time I finished a chapter. I did the summaries as a tool for me and they have come in handy so many times.

Besides a brief summary of the main events in the chapter, I incorporated a time line into my synopsis. This was invaluable to me since the action in my mystery covered a four-day period and after a while, I got to the point that I couldn't remember if a particular event happened last night or day before yesterday or three days ago. When I wanted to insert additional material, checking the chapter synopses was a real time-saver since I didn't have to go back and read several chapters to find the right place to add information. My format is simple - Chapter One: (Day 1/Late Afternoon) or Chapter Twelve: (Day 2/Early Morning. Followed by a paragraph or two, this gives me everything important I need to know about a chapter.

I, also, put each character's name in bold the first time he/she appeared in the manuscript. This gave me a quick and easy reference when I want to add or change information about a character. It'd look pretty silly to mention a character before he/she's been introduced in the story or to introduce the same character twice!

I'm following the chronology of my chapter synopses as I write the novel synopsis. The challenge is to transform them into a catchy and exciting two or three page story that does my mystery justice.

Let's get published!